The above article has been retracted due to containing unattributed overlap with unpublished materials.

Here’s the abstract of the article by Knuckey, a professor at the University of Central Florida,

In this note some brief comments are provided on Burmilla and Ryan’s “Reconsidering ‘The Palin Effect’ in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election.” Specifically, Burmilla and Ryan’s conceptualization of the “Palin Effect” and their revised model specification are critiqued. Their findings that Palin exerted an effect on vote choice that was typical for any vice-presidential nominee also stands in contrast to several studies that conclude that Palin’s effect on vote choice in 2008 was far from typical.

Since the retraction notice was a bit vague, we asked Knuckey and the journal’s editors for more details. Co-editor Cornell Clayton, of Washington State University, told us:

If it were plagiarism, it would presume that the plagiarizer had access to the material before the author had published it. This could have happened if the author presented his information at a conference – or if the plagiarizer is capable of telepathy. Perhaps we need a new term for plagiarism “in advance”.

There are lots of possibilities, including but not limited to, a student/colleague having drafted part of the manuscript and it haven’t been taken and used OR an editor/reviewer stealing part of a manuscript. Could have been a student’s essay from a class.